Hello all,
It's been kinda quiet on the list lately. To provoke some discussion I was
wondering if any of you Dirtside players out there had some design
philosophies that you have found to be effective.
I recently bought a bunch of Future Wars miniatures and acquired a used
Centurion boxed set with most of the plastic tanks on the sprues. I am in the
final phase of painting them up and now I have to give them some stats. I went
to Andy Cowell's Dirtside II Page to get some inspiration but found that the
vehicle showcase link was dead. I am wondering if anyone knows of a similar
showcase or just wants to share their best designs. If it helps
I have a Grav/GEV heavy force.
Of course, I am always interested in tactics. Especially those that deal with
taking on a larger, cheaper force of tracked vehicles and powered infantry.
I'm not asking for too much now am I?
Senior Lurker,
> Ndege Diamond <nezach@earthlink.net> wrote:
I find airpower or aerospace ground attack fighter with GMS very
effective, particulary if GMS are "tossed" onto defending ADS/ZAD.
For 'Mechs, quad MDC/4 on VSC/7 with twin HAPSW is very
effective in totally obliterating virtually any opposing vehicle or PA
infantry.
For lightweight anti-tank vehicles, you can't really go past a
wheeled
VSC/2 with twin GMS/H in a turret, much like a LAV/AT. Put these in
units of six and your opponent is running scared. Substitute vertical launch
and fire them indirectly, with a half sized infantry element as spotters, and
they're very hard to take out. Use GMS Waypoints and your opponent's task
becomes nearly impossible.
For artillery spotting, a VSV/1 VTOL with a infantry element
artillery
spotter are cool, but don't last long against twin HEL/5 armed tanks.
For artillery, nothing compares to orbital artillery from a dedicated, 100%
available, orbital bombardment monitor, costed out at 1 Full Thrust
point equals 100 DSII points. If you can't quite afford that :-), a
battery of six VHA on tracks is nice. For aerospace defence, Theater area
defence using Brilliant,
GMS/7
equivalents, is terrifying! Particularly if combined with a few
on-table,
HEL armed, ZAD/ADS with interlocking fields of fire.
I haven't decided on MICVs. I think the Israeli idea of dedicating a tank to
carry a squad of infantry is the best idea. Light weight MICVs
(VSC/3),
like a Bradley or Warrior equivalent, are too easily blown away. To take out
powered armour, I like HAPSW (draws 5 chits, 1.5 capacity).
Some of my aerospace designs are on the Switzerland section of my site. I
intend to get the rest of my designs up there in the near future.
One of the best designs I've come up with is a size-3 fusion-powered
tank with a size-4 MDC cannon. It can take out any other vehicle, and it
costs about 200 points. The downside is that it''s useless against infantry.
Greetings,
One of my favorite tank design is what I call the Mauser, (FWM08)a fast
track size class three with twin SLAM/3 mount coaxially in a turret.
Cheap, accurate to 24" powerful enough to kill equal to its size and
multi-role (remember the scatter rule) and I have House rule on SLAM
attacks on infantry of pull chits for each stand in squad. To be truly
effective it must be supported with longer range guns in open terrain. But in
the small table heavy terrain cluster!@#$* battles I tend to run they are
scary. An kind of variant of Mauser is the Madison(FWM09) which is a Mauser on
GEV frame.
Another good one for close in battle is The Phoenix DFFC Carrier
(slow)Grav Tank(FWT20).A size 5 tank with DFFC/5 and MDC/3 in a turret
with PDS/basic,a LAD and reactive armour. There is few things like
firing a massive ball of plasma to convince the enemy to be elsewhere. The
Firedrake which is a Phoenix on a slow track frame.
A standard design is the Truman Meduim Tank fast track tank with Either
HPK/4 or MDC/4 depending on the technology with LAD. Good solid
performer against another medium and heavy tanks, but it is defendless against
infantry armed with GMS. An variant of Truman is the T. Roosevelt which is
Truman on GEV frame.
The Last one is Thorrson (FWV03), a size three VTOL missile carrier
with two GMS/L Enh and Forward Observation Equitment builded into
vehicle.
> --- Ndege Diamond <nezach@earthlink.net> wrote:
I have used often in the past an EXTREMELY expensive force of GRAV MBTs and
MICVs armed with MDC weapons and lavishly equipped with Stealth and ECM along
with Reactive armor. I had two Squads of Three Razorwing Class MICV
(Size 4, MDC/2 (t) carrying PA Infantry) get fired on by Thirty GMS/Ls
with only one loss (much to the consternation of my opponent who had a massive
defending force of low tech GMS armed vehicles with light infantry)
Michael Wikan Game Design Slave Zero Infogrames
http://www.slavezero.com
mwikan@accolade.com wikan@sprintmail.com "Nec Aspera Terrent"
> -----Original Message-----
You certainly seem to be super-tank happy, Andrew!
Personally, I've found that size 2-4 vehicles are most effective, as you
want at least a d8 signature, otherwise most shots will hit. It doesn't matter
what your armour is, if they can hit you, they can draw a BOOM chit (and
usually will). My personal favorite is (gasp!) old Epic whirlwinds; size 3
fast
tracked, armour 2, with twin SLAM/3
It was worked out on the list about 2 years ago that 1 FT point = 60 DSII
points. Unless someone has done some new calculations, this still
holds (with the change from 50CS to 20CS / mass).
Theater ADS? I don't recall finding anything to cover that in DS.
'Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
Commodore Alfred K Hole - RNS Indy's Folly (CB)
Fleet Admiral Alberto Doyle - NKV Vesuvius (LFI)
> -----Original Message-----
Quoth Brendan:
> You certainly seem to be super-tank happy, Andrew!
Alarishi Heavy Power Armor, size 1 Walker, DFFG-2, 1 APFC, 1 APSW,
Superior FC and ECM, Stealth 1. Produced by Imperial Tactical Technologies
under
license from Thyssen-Skoda AG.
(Motto: "Come inside and play!"--this is intended for fighting inside
asteroid habitats).
> Rick Rutherford <rick@esr.com> wrote:
Add twin HAPSW @ 1.5 capacity. They should just fit and allows drawing 4 chits
against infantry, twice!
> 'Neath Southern Skies <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:
^_^ I take it personally when a vehicle gets blown up.
> It doesn't matter what your armour is, if they can hit you, they can
That's why our gaming group removed that part of the rules. Now when a special
chit draw occurs only on the first draw. This means that FSD results are now
rare rather than common place occurences.
> It was worked out on the list about 2 years ago that 1 FT point = 60
I've been using the Pournelle rosetta stone conversion, which had 1 FT point =
100 DSII points.
> Theater ADS? I don't recall finding anything to cover that in DS.
Have a look at my site! ^_^ Enjoy!
> On Mon, 24 May 1999, Ndege Diamond wrote:
> It's been kinda quiet on the list lately.
i guess everyone's wandering around remembering what sunshine looks like.
> To provoke some discussion I was
tanks, mr diamond sir, thousands of 'em!
> I am wondering if anyone knows of
if not constrained by tech, i go for the biggest massdriver i can get my hands
on, put it in a turret, and mount a good pds. if i think my enemy will have
lots of gms, good ecm and reactive armour too. i don't field ADVs, as i reckon
the points are better spent making individual tanks more
gms-proof: it cuts down on vulnerability.
if the enemy is going to field lots of infantry, field lots of infantry
right back at him. alternatively, take plenty of off-table artillery
(it's
always worth taking a CBR if you do, in case he tries to counterbattery
you himself) or stock up on israeli-style porcupine vehicles: size 1 or
2,
perhaps a lightweight RFAC/MDC or SLAM, and a load of APSW. maybe APFC
too. the point is, they're cheap, fast, and deadly to infantry. as long as you
can keep the enemy cavalry off them (which is where your armour comes in),
you're ok. the biggest threat is infantry with gms; unless you can fit a pds
on each one (making them quite a bit more expensive), you either rely on ADS
or resign yourself to massive casualties in that department.
i've played about with designs for a heavy gev/grav force: size 5,
superior pds, huuge massdriver for the mbt, two teams of power armour for the
ifv, etc. i think they're so expensive you'd only get a tiny force, which
would be a pain.
soo, middle of the road:
mbt
size 4 (+20 cp)
armour 4, maybe reactive slow gev, maybe fast gev
ecm/enh, maybe sup
fcs/sup
maybe stealth-1
mdc/5 in turret (-15 cp) providing you allow that
pds/sup (-4 cp?)
apfc or apsw (-1 cp)
ifv
size 3 (+15 cp)
armour 3, maybe reactive slow gev, maybe fast gev
ecm/enh, maybe sup
cargo 8 (-8 cp)
gms/l (-2 cp)
pds/sup (-4 cp?)
apfc or apsw (-1 cp)
maybe drop pds to enh, drop apfc/apsw, upgrade gms to gms/h
spg
size 4 (+20 cp)
armour 4, maybe reactive
slow gev
ecm/enh, maybe sup
fcs/sup
(the biggest artillery weapon you can fit)
(pds + apfc/apsw for whatever's left)
aav
size 2 (+10 cp)
armour 2R
fast gev
ecm/enh, maybe sup
fcs/sup
mdc/2 in turret (-6 cp)
3 apsw (-3 cp)
apfc (-1 cp)
laav
size 1 (+5 cp)
armour 1R
fast gev
ecm/enh, maybe sup
4 apsw (-4 cp)
apfc (-1 cp)
but these are really the most basic designs imaginable.
> Of course, I am always interested in tactics. Especially those that
generally, concentrate. take out the most dangerous parts of the enemy force
first. if you have objectives other than "smash kill maim destroy", consider
those first. if you are using gms, whack the enemy ads with guns. if facing
infantry, keep the range open. if facing heavy tanks, close. all pretty basic
stuff, but then i'm an ft guy first and foremost.
> Senior Lurker,
what? last i heard, you were lurker first class. you'll be running the whole
list in a few weeks!
tom
> It was worked out on the list about 2 years ago that 1 FT point = 60